A time tangle
by bhut
Summary: Sequel to "Return of Ethan". The ARC field team must get over their scars and new inter-team tension before time itself gets broken for good.
1. Chapter 1

**A time tangle (part 1)**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

"It has been several days, even a couple of weeks, since Ethan returned to 21st-century London, and so far he had not made his move. Rather, he appeared to be lying low, possibly gathering forces and/or allies, but there was nothing tangible to go about, so the ARC was forced to wait as well.

The time anomalies too seemed to have died down to a tolerable level: there was only one time anomaly, leading to the early Triassic, when only one armored reptile – an aetosaur named desmatosuchus – had come through and was coerced to go back without any trouble, so things were quiet on that front as well..."

"Connor? What exactly are you doing?" Jess incredulously asked the ex-university student as the latter narrated the above-quoted paragraphs into a recorder.

"I am updating my blog," Connor said brightly. "I used to run the blog back when Danny – when _Sarah Page_ was here, you know, but then Abby and I got trapped in the Cretaceous, and the blog fell into disuse. Now I am restoring it – or rather, I have been restoring it for the last month and a half, or so..."

Jess blinked. "Why?"

"Why do people have blogs, Jess? To communicate online, to put their innermost thoughts – also online, you know? I mean, a techno-savvy person like you should have your own blog, right?"

"Eh, I always thought they were childish," Jess muttered, before catching herself. "That's beside the point. What I meant to do was to ask – why are _you_ doing this?"

"Because a blog needs to be updated," Connor did not back down, "and furthermore, I was on the sick leave, remember, so I needed to do something extra from going stir-crazy."

"Oh, now I get it," Jess muttered quietly. The last confrontation between the ARC field team and Ethan Dombrowski ended with the latter scoring a very tangible, and not just moral, victory: thousands of pounds worth of property were destroyed and most of the members of the ARC field team now sported long scars on their bodies, except for Abby, who actually lost several joints from several of her toes instead, and also for Emily...

"What about me?" Emily Merchant asked unexpectedly, startling the other two.

"We were just thinking about the recent events," Connor responded before Jess could. "About Ethan and all, you know?"

"Oh, I see," Emily nodded sagely, before pausing. "Shouldn't you be assuming that I am trying to make a pun? James Lester had certainly assumed so."

"Lester is a good man, but his personality is hard to get along," Connor nodded. "And anyways, _are_ you trying to make a pun?"

"No," Emily shook her head. "I-"

It was then that the time anomaly rang.

"Got to go," Connor got up quickly – maybe too quickly as he winced for some leftover pain.

"Me too." Emily's voice and facial expression (from the side not obscured by the bandages) brooked no argument. Connor winced again – this time not from physical pain, and folded:

"Let's go and talk to Matt, then."

_TBC_


	2. Chapter 2

**A time tangle (part 2)**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Of course, even Emily Merchant knew that a victory over Connor Temple was not exactly something worth bragging about in the ARC, not unlike, say, Matt Anderson, whom she was confronting now.

"Emily," Matt said in the tone of voice that brooked no argument, "you're not going. You might be actually blind in one eye now – until we get a confirmation that it has recovered nicely after the trauma-"

"Don't, Matt, just don't," Emily was not backing down at all. "I'm not dying with a whimper – I just can't. My former tribe and I - we had a lot worse than just scars, including facial scars, you know?"

"And so far, out of all of your tribe, there's just you and Ethan, who – I don't know how to even describe him," Matt confessed, but was interrupted by Becker.

"Okay, we're ready, it's time to go," Becker told the other man.

"I'm coming too," Emily said flatly.

"Anderson?" Becker looked at the other man.

"That's the last time, until the medics give a positive result upon your eye," Matt said in a stern tone of voice. "The last time."

"We'll see," Emily said flatly. "And BTW, if you're a man of a similar bend of mind as Mr. Lester is – no, that's not a pun." With those words she went to take her seat in the car, right next to Abby, leaving the two men thoroughly confused about her parting shot.

/ / /

The new time anomaly had manifested itself at a water processing plant, twinkling in mid-air. "Right, my data says that it leads to the Carboniferous period – you know, giant insects and amphibians, you know?" Connor said as he looked at his device.

"Right," Becker muttered, sounding less than awed by Connor's professionalism. "Let's run a perimeter check, ensure that nothing – or no one – has gotten from the other side and seal it."

As if to mock him, a grey wolf emerged from the plant's shadows, a dead rat in its jaws. Noticeably ignoring the people, it trotted into the time anomaly and vanished.

There was a pause. "There really was a wolf – an ordinary wolf, rather like the ones in the London zoo?" Emily asked Abby, sounding somewhat uncertain of herself for the first time since today. "Not just a mongrel dog?"

"No," Abby said firmly. "This really was an ordinary, present-day, grey wolf, and it gone into a late Palaeozoic time epoch - supposedly. Connor - you sure that this isn't another case of two time anomalies molding into one another?"

"Yes," Connor replied, just as firmly. "In fact, I'm going to send a robot to be certain."

"Good idea," Matt joined the discussion at last. "Send in your robot!"

Connor just glared, instead of replying.

_TBC_


	3. Chapter 3

**A time tangle (part 3)**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

The remote-controlled robot slowly drove into the time anomaly, and – got stuck. Literally. Its' caterpillar tracks became stuck in the local mud and mire.

"Well," Connor said diplomatically, shortening and extending the robot's camera 'eye' instead, "this is definitely the Carboniferous time period. See the giant seed ferns? The calamites? The sigillaria in the distance? That's definitely the Carboniferous time period."

"Then where are the wolves?"

"Right there – beneath the sigillaria, see?" Connor tried to move the robot to bring the chronologically displaced mammals into a better view, but instead caused the supposedly mobile machine to tip over and fall into the muddy water. "Oops. That was an accident."

"Good for you," Becker muttered sourly. "Then again, we still would have to go and see what is happing on that side for ourselves. Let's go."

Connor opened his mouth to point out that Matt was the leader of the field team, but even if he did not catch Abby's silent plea not to bring this up, the sight of Matt busy arguing with Emily would have brought Connor to his senses in any case.

"Okay," he said carefully. "Becker, you're right. Let's go."

And so they went, followed by Abby, while Matt and Emily remained to argue with each other.

/ / /

The air on the other side of the time anomaly was hot and humid and reeking of mud and rotten vegetation. "The Carboniferous," Connor spoke, trying to sound professional, but rather failing. "It is called the Age of Coal, the Age of Plants, and the Age of Amphibians, to distinguish from the Devonian - the so-called Age of Fish..."

"Connor," Abby tried to interrupt her boyfriend.

"What?" Connor was not backing down. "This is the time epoch when all of the coal used by humanity got jump-started, so to speak. Also," he added, "this is the time when our planet's atmosphere had the highest content of oxygen of all times, so no fires or we might start a wild fire on top of everything else."

There was a pause. "Now that's sensible advice," Becker admitted, rather grudgingly. "Any ideas what to do once we get out the robot?"

Abby and Connor exchanged looks. "Not really. We might need Matt on this. Modern mammals aren't really designed to live in Palaeozoic swamps, and that includes us-"

"Ah. Well," Becker nodded sagely, "then let's go get the robot and do some reconnaissance in the process."

_TBC_


	4. Chapter 4

**A time tangle (part 4)**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Contrary to the expectations of the (slightly reduced) ARC field team and their back-up (though now they had an arrangement with police, currently there was no sign of Ethan or any human-related activity, so it was just the ARC forces) made their way to the stuck robot.

Also contrary to their expectations were their surroundings: the Carboniferous landscape did not appear to be a pure swamp, a mixture of land and water and nothing else. On the contrary, the two landscape features were separated clearly enough; in particular, the time anomaly opened on the shores of a Palaeozoic lake or pond, admittedly overgrown with calamites, but still obviously not a swamp. The ARC's robot only had the bad luck to have its tracks be caught in the vine-like roots of some plants, mostly looking like seed ferns than anything else - that was all.

"Okay, I'm having the glimmers of idea," Abby said suddenly. "Connor, where did you say the wolves were?"

"Further down the shore, where it's drier," Connor shrugged. "I think there are several of them – no less than four, maybe more."

"Wonderful," Becker muttered crossly. "Is it just me, or should we have brought some dogs along for the job?"

"Hunting dogs, you mean," Abby said crossly. "Police dogs here won't do any good."

"You know," Connor suddenly stopped. "I have just realized something-"

Before Connor could finish explaining what he has realized either a giant lungfish or amphibian emerged from the water, lunged ashore, swallowed the robot whole and rolled back beneath the surface.

"...That wasn't that," Connor said after a pause. "That was one of the native giant amphibians – the current alpha predators, sort of like the modern crocodiles. Guess I forgot about them."

"You think?" Abby said crossly. "Guess we know why wolves stay where it's drier and safer, eh?"

"Maybe. That, though, wasn't my point, remember?"

"What is your point, then?" Abby said crossly, her patience with Connor running thin.

"The original wolf wasn't scared of us at all – ergo, I think that the original time anomaly had opened not in the modern times, but earlier – the Ice Age, the Pleistocene epoch in general..."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that I don't think that we'll have any problems approaching the animals – at least none of the obvious ones," Connor explained he and the others carefully circled around the lake. "The wolves – they're not scared of us at all!"

"So?"

"So," Connor again was interrupted by the local wildlife – this time a swarm of flying insects that came buzzing from the tree-like plants, and the last specimen was as big as a modern eagle!

"The Meganeura!" Connor gasped as he leaned too far backwards and fell onto his butt. "The most famous of the Carboniferous' giant insects! Awesome!"

"Aha, awesome," Becker said dryly. "Connor, stop."

Connor, who had been in the process of getting onto his feet, froze. "Pardon?" he said slowly.

"Not that," Becker said dismissively. "I mean, where you were going, talking about how the wolves weren't, or aren't, scared of us, what is your point?"

"We may be able to earn their trust and lead them back to our time without any violence," Connor explained. "Once there, we'll either contain them at the center, or – the better choice, in my opinion – would be to send them back to their appropriate time, the Pleistocene or the early Holocene; how does that sound?"

"Potentially doable, but needs work," Becker confessed openly. "Abby, you have the most experience with wild animals-"

"Oh no, don't get me involved," Abby said firmly. "I mean – I worked with lizards, not with mammals."

"Then we're staying put, or even returning back to the plant," Becker snapped. "I had it with running into trouble half-cocked-"

The skies thundered.

_TBC_


	5. Chapter 5

**A time tangle (part 5)**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

When Connor Temple had warned his friends about the frequent and dangerous wildfires of the Carboniferous time period, he spoke the truth. However, he forgot about the other aspect of this time period – the equally frequent and dangerous thunderstorms. And, since Murphy's Law was always present whenever the ARC and its members were involved, one of those thunderstorms broke forth just now, sending a deluge down onto the various parties involved.

...The wolves recognized just _what_ exactly was coming first. Ever since they ended up here, strangers in a strange land, they had experienced such 'weather phenomena' several times already, and even lost one of their adult members – and several of their pups – to the floods that resulted from the storms. Consequently, as soon as the first of the great raindrops fell onto them and the soil, the time-displaced mammals fled, following their alpha and beta males to the nearest dry ground, which lay, conveniently enough, on the other side of the time anomaly.

...The giant amphibian – well, not a 'true' amphibian, but a relative of the ichthyostega, hynerpeton, and other primitive tetrapods of the Devonian – was just a bit more sluggish in the water than the usual: the ARC's robot proved to be indigestible even to its acidic stomach, and so it vomited up the mini-machine almost immediately after swallowing it. This did not benefit its' overall health either, but it was still hungry – therefore, once it heard the sound of the wolves' paws splashing through the rapidly deepening shallows, it followed them... just not as fast as it could.

...Finally, the ARC field team was caught practically flat-footed by the raging torrent, but fortunately, their survival instincts were good enough and honed enough by now for them to flee back to the time anomaly without really thinking about it, maybe not as quickly as the wolves...but they had less distance to cover as well. Consequently, they, the wolves, and the tetrapod have reached the time anomaly just as the flood waters were reaching it and the time anomaly became destabilized...

And then there was a flash of chromatically white light...

_TBC_


	6. Chapter 6

**A time tangle (part 6)**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Solitude had not benefitted Matt Anderson and Emily Merchant at all; rather, the angry stares have faded into an even angrier – but stonier – silence. And it did not promise anything good to their relationship, either.

But then... something happened. The time anomaly expanded and contracted, practically imploding and exploding in a great burst of sludge-like water, which just splashed all around the plant, smelling of rot and death.

But something else – a very big something else – emerged from that sludge. Emily, for one, may currently have had only one functioning eye, but even that eye widened in shock when she saw what has emerged from the now closed time anomaly.

The _heads_ of the creature were stuck on long, almost hydraulic-looking necks, which were naked, hairless, and even slimy. Their _faces_ were somewhat familiar, bearing at least a passing resemblance, to Abby, Connor and Becker, among others. Their _eyes_, though, were completely inhuman: sometimes inflating into giant orbs more befitting fishes or amphibians, sometimes deflating and becoming more human, but completely insane. Their teeth, though, as the mouths opened and closed, always remained inhuman, but rather like those of a shark or a pike.

The abomination's physical irrationality (for the lack of a better word) continued down on its torso. There were its' _legs_, which numbered not two or four, or even six, but at least a dozen of them, all having a general wolf or wild dog feel to them, but just like the necks, they appeared somehow hydraulic as well.

The body itself – half-covered in matted grey fur and half-naked, covered in watery slime generally had the appearance of an inflated and oval water balloon, if it was not for secondary heads – snarling, drooling, apparently mindless lupine heads that jutted at every angle, their own eyes completely insane.

Finally, the tail itself was hairless, and completely slimy – a giant newt's tail with a fin that flickered from side to side, as the abomination reared up on its hind legs, its necks curved in S-shaped positions, and-

"Abby?" Emily swore that one of the abomination's heads had a flicker of recognition its eyes.

/ / /

_Time froze._

_Literally speaking. On one side stood Matt and Emily, frozen, even as Matt tried to lift his arms, grown disobedient from shock and fear tried to fire his weapon, as if it could be of any use against the abomination facing them on the right: even not standing fully upright, their formal friends almost touched the chamber's ceiling with their heads._

"_That what happens when you do not follow the basic safety techniques of time travel," the woman who was behind the time freeze told her cloned companions. "You get abominations such as those, which inspired Efland's monsters in times long ago. Now, of course, it isn't the Bronze age so myths could not explain – or help – such a freak." She paused and looked at the immobile aberration closer. "Hm. People. Wolves. And some sort of a basic semi-terrestrial animal that was a very distant ancestor to both. Wonder how did they all came together." She took another sniff. "Carboniferous water. Even more interesting, but no matter right now."_

_The woman paused and looked the abomination. "I am tempted to leave you like this now - permanently. That would be an end of the three of you – and your friends – and a far greater one, a far more terrible one, than anything I could've come up with."_

_Another pause. "But I won't. I do not have all the – mileage, you can say – out of you, so it is back to normalcy for you now."_

_The woman pulled out a device – a very similar device to a time anomaly manifestator – and pressed a sequence of buttons._

_And then, there was light._

_TBC_


	7. Chapter 7

**A time tangle (epilogue)**

_Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™._

Sometime later

"...What has happened?" Abby Maitland asked as she opened her eyes... in the ARC's medical wings. "Hey! This isn't where the time anomaly led!"

"No, it's not," Emily Merchant agreed, sitting by her bedside. "But...after you all came through the time anomaly... you were all in a bad way. Matt and I only were caught in the blast that resulted when all of you came through and even that was bad enough. All of you... you were unconscious when you came out... Matt and I had to call back up to get you out of there..."

"Emily, you're babbling," Abby said flatly.

"Abby. You, and Connor, and Becker, you were unconscious for a week," came the equally flat reply.

"A week? What? Why?"

"Complications from our previous accident," Emily's reply was still flat, but more apologetic now as well. "Inflammations in case of Becker and Connor, while in your case it was more of a clinical death – caused by a brief drowning – followed by some viral infestation of your feet and lungs. Very ugly too."

Abby blinked and for the first time became aware both of the IV drip in her arms and the tight bandages on her feet. "Oh. That bad?"

"You're all to remain in the medical wing, on the sick leave for the foreseeable future," Emily said apologetically. "Sorry. But it could've been worse."

"How?" Abby demanded, before Rex swooped down to her, followed by Sid and Nancy coming from below. "Oh. Hi guys." Pause. "Guys!" And she gave the trio a very heartfelt hug. "I missed you!"

Emily, for her part, just smiled a small sad smile and left, uneasy memories of her recent – and not so recent – past flickering through her head. "Ms. Ambroise shouldn't have died," she muttered sadly as she closed the door on a happier-than-before Abby. "She really shouldn't have."

_End of "A Time Tangle"_


End file.
